''It was like a very, very strong gust of wind that shook the building and we couldn't figure out what it was,'' said Janice Shattuck, the township's treasurer. ''We knew something happened somewhere.''

Amtrak officials said none of 46 passengers on the Wolverine from Chicago to Detroit was injured. But Kalamazoo County Sheriff's dispatcher Rita Morrison said several people were injured.

Amtrak spokeswoman Debbie Hare in Chicago said the truck driver was killed and the train engineer was burned on his hands, face and arms.

The accident occurred just east of Kalamazoo, a city of more than 200,000 in southwestern Michigan.

The Amtrak 350 left Chicago at 7:30 a.m. and had been expected in Detroit at 1:54 p.m., Hare said. The train's passengers were being taken to their destination by bus.